Jay Hovdey

There are any number of reasons to root-root-root for Derby hero Animal Kingdom to win the Preakness on Saturday, not the least of them the fact that there can be no Triple Crown winner this year unless he does. This is important, we have been told, because, a) a Triple Crown winner will save horse racing, b) no one really believes the Triple Crown can be won, c) NYRA needs the cash and, d) Sir Barton would like to stop spinning in his grave.

A horse winning a major race in their first try over a different surface tends to send Americans into a tizzy. We used to be a much more adventurous bunch. Look at what we've seen: In her first start on the dirt, after winning races like the Diana Handicap, the Flower Bowl Handicap and the Prix de l'Opera in her native France, Waya defeated champion filly Pearl Necklace in the 1979 Top Flight Handicap at Aqueduct.

The dedicated traditionalist in this correspondent appreciates all the doodads draped upon the Kentucky Derby that pluck at the emotional strings. The hats, the juleps, the celebrities, the infield antics -- it's a grand fantasy writ large in which somewhere there exists a horse race, and the way it's been done for decades is just fine with me.

Okay so I'm home in California pining for the damp green vistas of Ol' Kentucky, trying to imagine what it must be like to be Jon Court or Kerwin Clark this week about to ride in their first Kentucky Derby at a combined age of 102 (Jon is 23, Kerwin is 79 -- not really) when somebody brightens my day with a hashtag entitled Seinfeldderbyhorsenames. Finally, Twitter is good for something besides overthrowing Middle Eastern despots.

The Hall of Fame credentials of jockeys Calvin Borel, John Velazquez and Garrett Gomez could be burnished next Saturday if one of them comes through and wins the 137th running of the Kentucky Derby. Velazquez rides Uncle Mo, a cryptic star whose popularity seems to ebb and flow with the tides. Gomez landed the potentially lucrative Coolmore account with Master of Hounds. And Borel's on Twice the Appeal, a horse he's never ridden before who last appeared at Sunland Park. Anyone else smell Deja Bird?